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3/31/14

Sunday's
resounding victory by the ruling AK Party in Turkey's local elections,
undiminished by what some call an authoritarian turn by Prime Minister
Tayyip Erdogan, is likely to put already cool relations between Ankara
and Brussels in the chiller.

After months of revelations of high-level corruption and the furore caused by the government's blocking of Twitter and YouTube, Turkey finds itself at sharp odds with the European Union, which it has been negotiating to join since 1999.

Too
much has been invested in the process to call talks off - trade, energy
and infrastructure links make it as hard to break off as to push ahead.
But the EU is very unlikely to nudge Ankara's accession hopes along
until Erdogan shows he is prepared to protect civil liberties, justice
and the rule of law - and govern like a mainstream European prime
minister.

As if to underline that
point, the European Commission delivered a terse statement within hours
of final results showing AKP won 46 percent of the nationwide vote, a
significantly higher tally than many expected.

"Following the overall worrying developments which have taken place over the past three months, Turkey ... now urgently needs to re-engage fully in reforms in line with European standards," a Commission spokeswoman said.

"It
also needs to reach out to all citizens, including those which are not
part of the majority vote, in order to build the strongest possible
engagement on reforms needed to make progress on EU accession."

There
is scant evidence Erdogan is listening, or feels he needs to. As leader
of a country of nearly 75 million people which acts as an energy and
trade hub and an anchor in an often unstable region, he sees Turkey as
holding an upper hand.

His attitude
to EU membership since coming to power has been summed up as "Europe
needs Turkey more than we need them". That self-confidence will only
have been reinforced by Sunday's results, which give him a powerful mandate.

"He'll
be feeling 500 feet tall today, which makes him ruthless and able to do
anything," said Amanda Paul, a Turkey expert at the European Policy
Centre, a Brussels think-tank.

"It's
a lot of power in the hands of a man who has become increasingly
unpredictable and authoritarian," she said, suggesting it would have an
impact on EU relations.

On Sunday, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan was jubilant.
His AK Party had established relatively healthy results in municipal
elections with 44 percent of the vote.
It's an important step for Erdoğan, who is hoping to cement his
leadership ahead of this summer’s presidential election and the
parliamentary elections scheduled for next year.

From the outside, Erdoğan had looked vulnerable in recent month. Bans placed on YouTube and Twitter seemed
like desperate measures after almost a year of street
protests. Erdoğan's strident victory speech Sunday evening seemed to
confirm a different tactic.

As I wrote Saturday, Erdoğan's
social media ban is a means-unto-an-end for his real targets: The "deep
state" working within the Turkish government he suspects of recording
and leaking conversations between top-level AKP associates, and
the Gülen movement, the religious organization suspected of
orchestrating a corruption probe that has ensnared many of his allies.

Erdoğan's speech was full of allusions to his enemies, both
conflating them and targeting them specifically. Here's how he began:

The economic and financial impact of global warming is complex and not
well understood. In some scenarios there would be economic benefits for
countries that get warmer and wetter and consequently more fertile
agriculturally. Drier weather in some regions would result in sharply
lower crop yields.

3/30/14

Consumers cannot derive too much safety from meat that
is offered for sale in the Netherlands. That is the remarkable
conclusion of the newest report from the Dutch Research Board for
Safety.

Companies believe economic reasons to weigh out on the safety of a product, that is the damning conclusion of the "Risks in the meat chain" report", published by the Dutch
Research Board for Safety. It appears that hygiene rules are often
ignored, because of a lack of education or a lack of time.

Meat fraud is ever-present,
the Board stated. Meat can suddenly change composition on paper and
waste meat can be "turned into" meat for human consumption all of a
sudden. The horse meat security has not been guaranteed because of this
fraud sensitivity, the Board says clearly.

The Netherlands do have an official
office that has to assure food safety, called the Nederlandse Voedsel-
en Warenautoriteit, but it has "under-performed a lot".

The Research Board believes this to be the result of "constant reorganizations and cutbacks", leaving little means to actually have an impact on the meat industry.
"This is why the NVWA has lost authority", a claim to which the
organization stated that it is working on "structural improvements of
its oversight capabilities".

America's top
general in Europe has been sent back early from a trip to Washington in
what the Pentagon on Sunday called a prudent step given Russia's "lack
of transparency" about troop movements across the border with Ukraine.

General Philip Breedlove, who
is both NATO's Supreme Allied Commander Europe and the head of the U.S.
military's European Command, arrived in Europe Saturday evening. He had
been due to testify before Congress this week.

U.S.
Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel considered Breedlove's early return "the
prudent thing to do, given the lack of transparency and intent from
Russian leadership about their military movements across the border," a
Pentagon spokesman said. Washington says there are 40,000 Russian troops
on Ukraine's borders.

The pentagon
announcement came as U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian
Foreign Minist
er Sergei Lavrov met in Paris seeking to hammer out the
framework of a deal to reduce tensions over Russia's annexation of
Ukraine's Crimea region.

They aim
to develop a proposal conceived by Kerry and Lavrov at earlier sessions,
with Western leaders considering broader sanctions against Russia that
would target vital sectors of its economy including its mainstay oil and
gas industry.

Ideas on the table
included a deployment of international monitors in Ukraine, the
withdrawal of Russian forces from Crimea and the border zone around
Ukraine, and the launch of direct talks between Moscow and the
government in Kiev.

"Today, we
expect Secretary Kerry and Foreign Minister Lavrov to continue the
discussion they've been having in the interest of finding concrete ways
to de-escalate the conflict," a senior U.S. State Department official
said.

Kerry and Lavrov hoped to
build on a phone call on Friday between presidents Vladimir Putin and
Barack Obama, according to senior U.S. officials, to defuse the worst
East-West confrontation since the Cold War ended two decades ago.

France's ruling Socialist Party suffered humiliating losses Sunday in a
local vote marked by breakthrough successes for the far-right National
Front and the historic election of a first female mayor of Paris.

On a day dubbed "Black Sunday" by
one Socialist lawmaker, the National Front (FN) won control of at least
eight towns and was on track to claim 1,200 municipal council seats
nationwide, its best ever showing at the grassroots level of French
politics.

It was also a night to savour for France's main opposition, the centre-right Union for a Popular Movement (UMP).

The
party of former president Nicolas Sarkozy performed strongly across the
country, seizing control of a string of towns and cities, including
some once considered bastions of the left.

In
a rare consolation for President Francois Hollande's party, the
Socialists held on to control of Paris, where Anne Hidalgo, 54, will
become the first female mayor of the French capital after a victory that
was far more comfortable than anyone had expected.

But
Limoges, a town that had been run by the left for 102 years, fell to
the UMP, as did Toulouse, the Champagne capital Reims and Saint Etienne,
as well as dozens of other smaller urban centers.

While the EU and the US are screaming "bloody murder" about the Crimea referendum, one of their most important NATO partners Turkey is holding it's own local elections which can not be described as being held under ideal democratic circumstances/

According to the pollster Konda, Erdogan's Justice and Development Party
stood at 46 percent support in the run-up to Sunday's vote despite the
recent scandals.

The opposition Republican People's Party polled at 27 percent, while the
Nationalist Movement Party and the pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy
Party garnered a combined 22 percent.

The ruling AKP and their leader Erdogan has basically taken over control of the Turkish judiciary system and purged 7,000 people from the police and judiciary in
response to anti-graft raids that targeted businessmen close to the
prime minister last December.

Last month, an audio recording was leaked
in which Erdogan apparently tells his son Bilal to hide large sums of
money.has also made him ban social media Twitter and YouTube.

Turkey also remains the country with the largest number of journalist in jail globally.

What is amazing in all this however, however, is that neither the EU nor the US has made much fuss about the situation in Turkey, except for some indirect' "off the cuff" remarks.

Neither the EU or the US has also sent polling station observers to the recent elections...

Consequently there is "something fishy going on in Denmark" when it comes to the EU and the US having to deal with Turkey on the issues of Democracy, Human rights and freedom of expression.

3/29/14

Turkey is going to the polls in local elections on March 30. The vote
comes amid allegations of government corruption and bribery, debates
about a so-called "parallel state", and with government moves to block
Twitter and YouTube heavily criticized.

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his ruling Justice and
Development Party [AKP] have come out of each general election since the
party was first elected to power in 2002 with more votes than before,
securing nearly 50 percent of the vote in 2011 general elections.

But this election may represent the AKP’s biggest challenge to date,
and is being described as a litmus test for upcoming presidential and
parliamentary elections. The main parties fielding candidates are
Erdogan’s AKP, the main opposition party Republican People’s Party
(CHP), the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) and the pro-Kurdish Justice
and Development Party (BDP).

The local elections first garnered attention with anti-government Gezi Park protests in June 2013, when thousands of people descended on a park in central Istanbul against the municipality’s gentrification plans.

The elections have been dominated by a new scandal that
began on December 17 last year, when three AKP cabinet ministers’
children were arrested on corruption charges, and several government
figures were implicated in graft probes.

Turkey’s main opposition party, the Republic People’s Party (CHP), has tried to make sure the
graft probe remains at the centre of the election process. "The state’s
conscience woke up on December 17," CHP leader, Kemal Kilicdaroglu,
said, referring to when the first arrests were made.

Erdogan blamed rival
Fethullah Gulen, the US-based head of the Gulen movement, for the
recent controversies, and their feud has dominated the headlines.
Erdogan described the Gulen movement as "a threat to national security"
and called the Gulen movement "a terrorist organisation".

Recent opinion polls show that people are confused about
the public AKP-Gulen feud. While 60 percent of Turkish people believe
the corruption allegations are true, 57 percent also think that the
graft probe is a coup attempt targeting Erdogan.

Ahead of the polls, various audio recordings have also leaked,
with the latest reportedly showing top government and security
officials discussing launching military operations into Syria. The
Turkish government banned Twitter and YouTube over these leaks.

Russia's foreign minister says Moscow has "absolutely no intention"
of ordering its armed forces to cross over the Ukrainian border, in a
statement that appears to rule out an invasion of mainland Ukraine
following Russia's seizure of Crimea.

"We have absolutely no intention and no interests in crossing the
Ukrainian border," Sergei Lavrov told Russian state television on
Saturday.

"We (Russia and the West) are getting closer in our positions," he
added, saying recent contacts had shown the outlines of a "possible
joint initiative which could be presented to our Ukrainian colleagues".

Lavrov's comments came after US President Barack Obama urged his
Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin to withdraw troops from near the
Ukraine border, in the first direct contact between the two leaders
since the Crimea takeover.

The White House said on Saturday that Obama had urged Putin, in a
"frank and direct" telephone conversation, to ease tensions by removing
troops, and respond to proposals for a diplomatic solution put forward
by the US earlier this week.

Al Jazeera's Alan Fisher reporting from Washington DC, said: "It is
really about trying to push forward, get some sort of diplomatic
solution that everyone can live with. No one is going to get exactly
what they want out of this, but Barack Obama believes that the diplomacy
is the way ahead."

DPA reports that Greek pharmacies remained closed across the country on Friday as
lawmakers prepared to vote over the weekend on a new austerity bill,
which would liberalise the sector.

Pharmacists, who have locked-up their shops until at least Monday,
say the measures, which include deregulating pharmacy licenses and
creating pharmacy chains and outlets in supermarkets, would put them out
of business.

"What does the government want to do? Put us all out
on the street begging for money," said pharmacist Giorgos
Papakonstantinou, who insists the new law would wipe out independent
shops such as the one he owns near Syntagma Square.

The protests
come hours before the government is scheduled to submit new legislation
to parliament which would scrap market trading regulations to make the
economy more competitive.
Parliament will vote on the bill Sunday.
It will pave the way for the release of 10 billion euros of aid from
international lenders.

Unions announced they will hold protests to coincide with the vote and will hold a general strike on April 9.
Aside
from liberalising retail stores, the new law also allows longer
shelf-life for milk. Until now Greece is the only country in the EU that
limits the shelf life of fresh milk, which the country's bailout
lenders say prevents imports.

The European Commission, the
European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund agreed last
week on the release of long-delayed emergency loans, after seven months
of negotiations.

The next bailout tranche is due to be released
"well before" Greece faces a large bond redemption in May, an EU
official said in Brussels on Thursday.

Eurogroup finance ministers
are expected to discuss Greece's latest reform pledges when they meet
in Athens next week, with a view to formally concluding the agreement by
the second half of April.

The eurozone's rescue fund still has 10.1 billion euros (13.8 billion dollars) available for Greece.

Greece
has been granted 240 billion euros in bailout loans since 2010. In
exchange, it is required to cut public spending and implement economic
reforms.

The Turkish authorities’ move today to block access to YouTube on the eve of Sunday’s elections, and not long after they restricted access to Twitter, smacks of a wider pre-meditated crackdown on freedom of expression, Amnesty International said.

According
to media reports, Turkey’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs cited national
security concerns when it sought an administrative order to block the
video-sharing platform – allegedly to prevent further circulation of a
taped recording of discussions between senior Turkish officials on
Syria.

“The Turkish government appears to be itching for
pretexts to close down websites because of their capacity to mobilize
dissenting opinion and broadcast embarrassing material,” said Andrew
Gardner, Amnesty International's researcher on Turkey.

“Coming
just days before Turkey goes to the polls and in the wake of Prime
Minister Erdoðan’s strident criticism of YouTube, this is clearly
nothing more than a crude attempt at government censorship that will
only generate deeper distrust and frustration.

“Even if
the Turkish authorities have legitimate concerns about some of the
content that might appear, it is completely disproportionate to enforce a
blanket YouTube ban in the entire country. Access to YouTube must be
restored immediately and the authorities must stop blocking sites that
expose abuses and provide a platform for dissenting views.”

Three agents from the US secret service responsible for protecting
President Obama in Amsterdam this week have been sent home after a night
of drinking. The incident happened just a day before the president’s
arrival.

One of the agents was found drunk and passed out in a hotel
hallway by hotel staff on Sunday morning, according to the people
familiar with the incident who spoke on condition of anonymity,
reported the Washington Post.

The hotel workers immediately
alerted the US embassy in the Netherlands, which then informed
senior agents on the presidential trip, including its director,
Julia Pierson.

The same source added that the other two agents were also
involved in the incident who “didn't intervene despite being
in a position to assist the drunken agent or tamp down his
behavior.”
The agency “did send three employees home for disciplinary
reasons,” confirmed Secret Service spokesman Ed Donovan,
adding that they were put on administrative leave pending an
investigation. However, he declined to comment further on the
case.

All three men are GS-13-level agents of the elite Secret
Service’s Counter Assault Team, known as CAT, which is
responsible for ‘the last line of defense’ for the president,
according to Washington Post sources.

One of those involved in a drunken incident was a ‘team
leader’ on counter­assault, however, he “was not in a
supervisory position in the agency,” added the source.

The First Lady’s of the US on a trip through China also spoke of freedom of expression and the Internet during a speech at Peking University. It was a brave step because she knew it’s a hot topic for the Chinese regime.

China
consumes a staggering amount of man-hours and money just to monitor,
block and filter communications of half a billion users. China is third in the world for throwing journalists in jail, behind Turkey and Iran, with 32 journalists in prison.

She said: “It’s
so important for information and ideas to flow freely over the Internet
and through the media, because that’s how we discover the truth,” she
said. “That’s how we learn what’s really happening in our communities
and our country and our world.”

Mrs. Obama's specific remarks were censored by China’s news agency, but circulated
in social media. America’s mainstream media praised the First Lady for
speaking out on this issue.

Turkish citizens going to the polls for local elections will decide on
far more than new mayors. After corruption and censorship scandals, they
are also going to vote on the future of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip
Erdogan.

Istanbul, the 15-million-metropolis where Recep Tayyip Erdogan started
his political career as the city's mayor 20 years ago, is going to play a
decisive role in Turkey's local elections on Sunday (30.03.2014). If
Erdogan's Justice and Development Party (AKP) were to lose here, it
would translate to a serious blow to the prime minister's power.

Mustafa Sarigul is prepared to deal that blow to Erdogan. The
57-year-old mayor of Istanbul's wealthy district of Sisli is on the main
opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) ticket and faces Erdogan's
fellow party member and ruling city mayor Kadi Topbas in elections.

Polls suggest it's going to be a neck-and-neck contest. During the
campaign, Sarigul has promised to introduce free Wi-Fi across the city
and provide free public transport for students - a clear signal that he
wants to win over Turkey's young generation. According to Erdogan,
Sarigul is an "anarchist."

Recent corruption allegations have taken their toll on Erdogan. Every
other day, new embarrassing recordings of phone conversations have been
leaked online - taped conversations between Erdogan and other
government officials on bribery or how to put pressure on the media.

Erdogan has called it a conspiracy orchestrated by the movement of
Islamic cleric Fethullah Gulen, who is currently living in the United
States. The Gulen movement used to support the AKP but is now at odds
with the government.

Erdogan has blamed Gulen supporters for launching a major corruption
probe and sacked several thousand police officials, judges and
prosecutors believed to be linked to the Gulen movement. Last week
Erdogan
shut down popular micro-blogging site Twitter
to prevent further revelations. Telecommunications authorities on
Thursday also enacted "administrative measures" against the YouTube
video site. Erdogan's supporters have said such steps are necessary to
protect the state while his opponents argue Erdogan launched an attack
on democracy and that his actions represent a sign of panic and an
increasingly authoritative style of politics.

Fethi Acikel, a professor of political science at Ankara University,
said Erdogan's harsh and polarizing demeanor was a carefully calculated
strategy. After the protests in Gezi Park last summer, the prime
minister tried to aim for a strong Turkish presidential system by
applying "controlled pressure" on society, Acikel told DW. Instead of
the current, rather weak presidential position, Erdogan was pushing for a
powerful head of state, similar to the French or US system - with
himself at the helm.

But his plan didn't work out as he intended as more and more Turkish
citizens turned away from him. Eight people died during the Gezi
protests and polarization in society continued to increase.
Corruption allegations
fueled the anger even more, because they pointed to the party's alleged
dark side. "That's why the local elections are a referendum so to speak
on the AKP's nepotistic, corrupt and authoritarian politics," Acikel
said.

3/27/14

Last week, on March 19, one day ahead of the European Heads of
States and Governments’ discussions on the 2030 climate and energy framework proposals, the European renewable energy
associations jointly called on EU leaders to fully grasp the long-term benefits of an ambitious nationally
binding EU renewable energy target.

"The European economy is exposed to volatile fossil fuel prices and insecure fossil fuel imports,
especially in these days of geopolitical turmoil at our borders. It must confront climate change. It is
facing international competition in sectors of strategic importance for Europe’s growth. In view of the
European Council meeting tomorrow, the renewable energy associations emphasise the need for a
sustainable and cost-efficient energy mix that can help Europe tackle these challenges.
According to the European Commission’s own Impact Assessment, the proposals that the Heads of
States will discuss tomorrow are not the ones that would bring the most benefits by 2030.

While a
2030 framework based on a truly ambitious and binding renewable energy target would deliver major
savings, such as an additional €260 billion in avoided fossil fuel imports, and 568,000 more jobs1, the
discussion has been pre-formatted to only consider the least ambitious pathway.

An ambitious 2030 climate and energy framework based on a binding national renewable EU energy
target is not only justified from a macro-economic viewpoint, but it is also crucial for businesses and
investors. Both

Europe’s economy and its citizens would greatly benefit from a strong commitment of
EU leaders towards the energy transition. Such commitment needs to go beyond a simple volatile CO2
price and thus drive investments into clean energy technologies. EU citizens would this way benefit
from a secure and clean energy supply, healthier living conditions and a boosted job market, while the
European economy would enjoy a competitive and stable energy framework for the years to come.

The European renewable energy associations thus call on the Heads of States and Governments to fully
reap the benefits of a more sustainable energy system and to agree on an ambitious nationally binding
EU renewable energy target for 2030."

China, the 'world's factory', is losing its shine. And to a great extent
this has been the result of the rise in workers' wages in most major
cities. How has this happened?

Although the international financial crisis
saw a minimal increase in the basic wage in 2009 in China, a wave of big
wage increases nevertheless materialized in 2010. The 12th Five-Year
Plan emphasized that residents' income should grow commensurately with
economic development and that labor wages should grow commensurately
with labor productivity. As a result, many provinces raised the minimum
wage for workers.

According to basic salary statistics issued by China
Labor Consult, 16 provinces raised their minimum wage in the first six
months of this year alone, and most of the increases were of over 20%.
According to the table on the right-hand side comparing the 16 cities,
Sichuan saw the highest raise, of 38%, a heart-breaking figure for
employers, while Shenzhen had the highest basic salary of RMB$1,500 per
month, a frightening figure for factory owners.

Wage increases are now very much on the
corporate agenda as a result of fierce competition for labor. The
situation is particular severe in coastal regions where the cost of
living is much higher than in inland cities. Workers are now less
willing to travel a long way to earn what is only enough for their daily
necessities.

The new industrial regions of the inland cities now also
engage in inter-provincial competition for labor, while factories along
the coastal strip have been lowering their admission standards for
workers simply to recruit more labor. Higher wages of course are another
important factor. For example, one Shenzhen company announced it would
raise the basic wage by as much as 20%. Some industry experts forecast
that wages will increase by 20% or even 30% annually over the next five
years.

Ryanair, Europe’s biggest and most profitable airline, just announced a
new business model that would see the no-frills carrier work to expand
into the United States with airfare as low as $10 on select
transatlantic flights.

The airline’s colorful and headline-loving chief executive, Michael
O’Leary, spoke of his ambitious plans at the Irish Hotels Federation
conference in Meath earlier this week, saying that he’d offer tickets
from Europe to New York and Boston for just 10 euros ($13.70) and
flights back starting at only $10 (7.30 euros).

If it sounds way too good to be true, keep in mind that a $10 fare
comes with a big asterisks that will likely make the price look about 25
percent heftier when all is said and done. O’Leary himself is the first
to admit that he’ll charge for everything from booking to baggage and
seat selection.

“We can make money on 99 cent fares in Europe,” he enthused at the
hotels conference, according to the Irish Independent. “Not every seat
will be 10-euro of course, there will also need to be a very high number
of business or premium seats.”

The Real News Network
has published an interesting interview with SEJ author George Irvin
about inequality in the UK and the US and the wider question of whether
Anglo-American Capitalism has run out of steam. Watch the full interview : click on the link below
below.

Having
pivoted to Asia and done the de rigueur minimum over several years to
keep the trans-Atlantic alliance off life-support, Barack Obama awakened
with a jolt to Europe this week and, on his first visit to Brussels as
president, spoke of “inseparable allies” with a shared mission to
demonstrate that Russia cannot “run roughshod over its neighbors.”

Shaken
from a view of Europe as a kind of 20th-century yawn, Obama spoke of
freedom and the ideas that bind the United States and Europe still in an
ongoing “contest of ideas” against autocracy and “brute force.” He
rightly rejected the notion that this is “another Cold War that we’re
entering into,” noting that President Vladimir Putin of Russia
represents “no global ideology.”

He
spoke in timely fashion of “our Article 5 duty” under the North
Atlantic Treaty to respond with force to any attack on a NATO country,
important reassurance to the Baltic states, among others. This military
commitment was backed by reference to the need for “very real
contingency plans” to protect NATO nations in Central and Eastern
Europe. Those plans, to date, have been inadequate. Overall, the
combination of sanctions against Russia, economic support for Ukraine,
and the dispatch of additional military forces eastward sent a clear
message to Putin — one that will not reverse Russia’s Crimea annexation
but may stop him going any further.

Better
late than never: The Russian president has benefited from the
perception of a United States in full-tilt, war-weary retrenchment; of
American red lines turning amber and then green; of a divided European
Union; and a hollow NATO living more on the past than any vision of a
21st-century future. Obama has been making up for lost ground.

Still,
his Brussels speech, presented as a capstone of his visit and one of
those Obama specials designed to offset with eloquence a deficit of
deeds, was a poor performance overall, a jejune collection of nostrums
about binding values of free-market Western societies and their appeal
to the hearts (and pocketbooks) of people throughout the world, not
least Ukrainians.

The
problem is not that these propositions are untrue. The United States
and the European Union are still magnets to the poor and disenfranchised
of the earth. The problem is not even that an argument that the Iraq
war (with its myriad dead) is somehow more defensible than Crimea is
impossible to win. The problem is Obama needed to be more honest.

The
fact is the Western democracies he was exalting have been failing to
deliver, and autocrats of the world, bare-chested Putin included,
benefit indirectly from the resulting disenchantment.

“Now
is not the time for bluster,” Obama intoned. “The situation in Ukraine,
like crises in many parts of the world, does not have easy answers nor a
military solution.”

This
is true. But nor is it a time for clichés about the wonders of
democracy, freedom, open-market economies, the rule of law and other
underpinnings of the West. Not when democracy seems blocked, freedom
sometimes selective, open markets cruel and the law harshest on those
who have least.

Last
week, Wilders gave a speech at a PVV campaign event, in The Hague.
During his speech he asked the audience: "In this city...and in the
Netherlands...do you want more or less Moroccans?". The audience replied
with: "Less, less, less!" while applauding loudly. The DPA claims that
Wilders rhetoric is comparable to the same statements that Goebbels made
during his Sportpalast speech, in 1943.

During
Goebbels speech, he averted from his written textand began to mention
the complete "extermination" of the Jews. In his written text of the
speech, he wrote the word "solution" and fittingly stopped himself
before completing his statement. "Solution" referred to the term "final solution" and was seen as a less harsher term to describe the true intentions of the Nazi regime.

After
basking in the applause from his PVV party supporters, Wilders said:
"Good, we can arrange that.".

Last week, Wilders had also stated during a
visit to The Hague that with PVV leadership, the city would have "with less expense and if possible less Moroccans.".

After the United States had lost its surpluses, some time in the late
1960s, the system of fixed exchange rates and highly regulated capital
movements, which had nurtured capitalism’s Golden Age, was condemned.
Its inevitable collapse could not but push the dollar down, release the
bankers from their thirty-year-old restraints, and wind back rights and
services that labour had wrestled from capital since the war.

In 2008, the pyramids of private money, that Wall Street and the City
of London had built on the back of this constant tsunami of capital,
crashed and burned. At first, continental Europeans smiled, allowing
themselves an ‘I told you so’ moment, directed at the Anglo-saxons who
had spent a decade or two sneering at the Continent’s antiquated
commitment to manufacturing. Alas, that moment proved very brief. Soon,
they realised that their own banks were replete with toxic assets and
that their bankers had been allowed to run debts (or ‘leverage’) twice
as great as those in the Anglo-sphere. Put simply, Mrs. Thatcher bubble
had been surreptitiously exported to Frankfurt, Paris, Rome, Madrid,
Brussels etc. As had the ‘model’ of building up competitiveness by
squeezing wages until the local economies, behind the glitzy suburbs and
the globalised jet set, were in a permanent state of slow-burning
recession.

Post-2008, while the United States and Britain sought to bailout the
bankers with a combination of taxpayers’ money and quantitative easing
that aggressively sought to re-inflated the deflated toxic assets,
Europe was making a meal of the same project. Having rid themselves of
their central banks, the Eurozone’s politicians did their utmost to
shift all the stressed bank assets onto the shoulders of the weakest
amongst the taxpayers, thus causing a horrid recession and putting the
European Union on a path leading toward certain disintegration.

Nevertheless, and despite the significant differences between Britain
and the Eurozone, the broad picture remains the same: The establishment
responded to the financial crisis by inflating bank and real estate
assets (that were best left alone) and squeezing the majority of the
population with soul and income sapping austerity. In short, the
Thatcher model on steroids.

Growth is not the issue. The Left understands that there are many things
whose growth must be stumped: toxic waste, toxic derivatives, ponzi
finance, coal production, consumption that leaves the consumer
unfulfilled and the planet worse for ware, etc. No, the issue is
eclectic growth in the technologies and goods that contribute to a more
successful life on a sustainable planet. The Left has always known that
markets are terrible at providing these technologies and goods
sustainably, and in a manner that sets prices at a level reflecting
their value to humanity. What the Left was never very good at was in the
conversion of that gut feeling into workable policy that the
beneficiaries of this policy (i.e. the vast majority) would back.

A spectre is haunting Europe. It is the spectre of Bankruptocracy. A
curious regime of rule by the bankrupt banks. A remarkable political
arrangement in which the greatest extractive power (vis-à-vis other
people’s income and achievements) lies in the hands of the bankers in
control of the financial institutions with the largest ‘black holes’ on
their asset books. It is a regime that quick-marches the majority of
innocents into the trap of austerity-driven hardship that serves the
guilty few, while Parliament and civil society are held at ransom. While
2008 was meant to raise ‘regulatory standards,’ we now know that
nothing of substance has been done to reform finance.

This is not to say that we are anywhere near ready to replace
capitalism. Indeed, realism commands us to recognise that, if anything,
Bankruptocracy is well and truly in command of the European continent
and the only political forces on the march are those of the bigoted,
ultra Right. The Left must not err again, as it did in the 1930s,
thinking that capitalism’s great crisis will naturally lead to something
better. It may very well bring about the most hideous dystopia. This is
why it is of the essence to stabilise capitalism (through banking
regulation, a link between central banks and public investment, and a
wider social safety net) while struggling to revive democracy at the
local, national and European levels. Our success in this limited but
crucial goal is a prerequisite for forging a sustainable future in which
most people are gainfully employed in innovative enterprises of which
they are the sole shareholders.

New
technologies are transforming the structure of the US economy but
creating only modest numbers of jobs, according to the biggest official
survey of businesses, conducted only once every five years.

Beijing and Paris signed scores of deals on Wednesday worth 18
billion euros ($25 billion) on the second day of a lavish state visit by
the Chinese president, in what Francois Hollande said would bring
much-needed growth.

Xi Jinping and his wife Peng Liyuan have been
given VIP treatment on a nostalgia-tinted trip to France marking the
50th year of full diplomatic ties between the two countries -- a visit
due to culminate with a concert at the Versailles palace on Thursday.

On
Wednesday afternoon, after kicking off his trip in the eastern city of
Lyon, Xi travelled to Paris where he met with Hollande and signed a raft
of deals.

"Eighteen billion euros of contracts -- that is jobs,
growth and, most of all, significant prospects for the coming years,"
Hollande said during a joint press declaration with Xi.

By far, the biggest deal was a Chinese order for 70 Airbus planes worth more than $10 billion.
The order covers the purchase of 43 mid-range A320 planes and 27 long-haul A330s, the European aviation giant said.

China
had already announced its intention to purchase the planes but
subsequently froze the order due to a row over EU plans to impose a
carbon emissions levy on airlines.

The Chinese leader is on his first-ever European tour and after visiting
The Netherlands and France will head to Germany and Belgium.

President
Obama spent Wednesday in Brussels talking up the importance of the
security relationship between Europe and the United States, but it is
considered unlikely that Russia’s seizure of Crimea will prompt
increased European military spending at a time of economic anemia and
budget cuts.

NATO
and the European Union regard the Russian move in Ukraine as a wake-up
call, a reminder that hard power can easily trump 21st-century
assumptions about Europe as a sphere of trade, international law and
cooperation.

Despite
the newly militant tone, NATO members will continue to spend paltry
amounts on defense, experts say. But there is likely to be a slowdown in
cuts and a renewed debate on how that money is spent. That debate has
already started in Britain.

3/25/14

President
Obama vowed on Tuesday that the United States would use its military to
come to the defense of any NATO country that is threatened, sending a
warning to the Russian president, Vladimir V. Putin, about the
consequences of further aggression along the border with Eastern Europe.

“We
will act in their defense against any threats,” Mr. Obama said at a
news conference in The Hague. “That’s what NATO is all about. When it
comes to a potential military response, that is defined by NATO
membership.

”

The president said the United States and other world powers rejected Russia’s annexation of Crimea, a region of Ukraine that voted to secede
on March 16. But he acknowledged that military force would not be used
to return that region to Ukraine, which is not a member of NATO.

Amid all the backslapping, the "friction" of the
recent past will be politely overlooked. Why let a beautiful friendship
be spoiled by a littlesnoopingon Angela Merkel's phone calls or an American diplomat's use of anexpletiveto insist the EU keeps its nose out of Ukraine?

As it happens, the superficial harmony engendered
by such occasions reflects how both sides are literally singing from the
same hymn sheet on one key dossier: the plannedtrans-Atlantic trade and investment partnership(TTIP). This hymn sheet was written for them by an exclusive club of the world's top corporations.

Much of the preparatory work for that agreement -
currently under negotiation - has been done by the Trans-Atlantic
Business Council. Between them, itsmember companieshave caused or contributed toecological catastrophes(ExxonMobil), a cancer pandemic (British American Tobacco, Philip Morris) and afinancial crisis(Deutsche
Bank).

The leaders of these firms are not the kind of people I'd trust
to determine the kind of world in which my daughter will grow up. Yet
they weregiven such a taskin 1995, when they were effectively hired as economic advisers by the US government and the EU.

The demands reflect a broader agenda. Whereas
trade agreements have traditionally involved the reduction of taxes
levied on imported goods, the objective for these talks is to destroy or
dilute regulations that constrain corporate power.To advance this objective, big business is seeking that aspecialised court systembe
established so that it can obtain financial compensation for laws that
jar with the pursuit of profit. The system would institutionalise
inequality. It would be reserved for the global elite; ordinary folk
would have no access to it.

Officially known as "investor-to-state dispute settlement", the idea is modelled onprovisionsin
the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). Since NAFTA entered
into force 20 years ago, corporations have availed of it to try and undo
the hard-won gains of social and environmental activists.

Lone Pine
Resources, a US company, is currently using it in anattempt to overturnQuebec's moratorium on the extraction of shale gas by the hydraulic fracturing (or "fracking") technique.

The only discernible environmental benefit from
the trans-Atlantic accord is that it has already encouraged a
considerable amount of recycling. The arguments trotted out in favour of
it appear to have been cobbled together from NAFTA-era studies.

3/24/14

Business activity in the eurozone expanded in March
for the ninth month in a row, a key indicator showed Monday, adding
to hopes that the currency bloc is on the road to economic recovery.

The London-based research group Markit said its closely watched
Purchasing Managers‘ Index (PMI) for the region‘s manufacturing and
service sectors clocked 53.2 - just slightly below the 32-month high
of 53.3 that it had hit a month earlier.

Analysts had expected a more pronounced slackening of pace to 53.1.
All readings above 50 indicate expansion in business activity.

"The ongoing upturn in business activity in March rounds off the
eurozone‘s best quarter since the second quarter of 2011," Markit
chief economist Chris Williamson said in a statement.

Particularly encouraging was the fact that France, the eurozone‘s
second-largest economy, saw growth return to its output and new
orders, the research group said.

"The improvement in the PMI to a two-and-a-half year high in March
adds hope that a fully fledged recovery will be evident in France by
the second quarter," Williamson said.

President
Obama began a four-day visit to Europe on Monday with a quick tour of
the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, home to many of the masterworks of
Rembrandt and other celebrated Dutch painters, before starting a series
of critical consultations with allies about the fast-moving situation in
Ukraine.

Mr.
Obama’s trip is already being overshadowed by the actions of President
Vladimir V. Putin of Russia. The country’s forces seized another
Ukrainian military base in Crimea early Monday, as Mr. Obama and other
world leaders gathered in the Netherlands. Mr. Obama has called an
emergency meeting of the Group of 7 industrial nations that will convene
here Monday evening.

“Europe
and America are united in our support of the Ukrainian government and
the Ukrainian people,” Mr. Obama said in a brief statement after touring
the museum with Mark Rutte, the Dutch prime minister.

Mr.
Obama made the remarks while standing in front of “The Night Watch,”
Rembrandt’s depiction of a group of 17th-century militiamen. Mr. Obama
called it “easily the most impressive backdrop I’ve had for a press
conference.” After leaving the museum, Mr. Obama headed to The Hague for
the start of a summit meeting on nuclear security with 52 other world
leaders.

3/23/14

Traveling north on I-95 just south of Oakland Park Boulevard, motorists may have noticed four large spinning wind turbines. Turns out the heavily-trafficked location was not chosen by accident.

Fort Lauderdale recently installed four, 20-foot green wind blades that sit atop a 70-foot pole near I-95 not only to help power electric cars , but also to display its energy initiative. The city looked at various locations, but found Mills Pond Park, 2201 NW Ninth Ave., provides not only the necessary space with few permitting and zoning hurdles, but also a place where the city can showcase the turbines and educate the public on alternative energy.

"Mills Pond is such a popular park and so many families that go there, we thought it would be a good learning opportunity for kids to see and to ask questions," said Susy Torriente, assistant city manager for Fort Lauderdale. "It's a perfect location to catch people's attention and start talking about different types of energy."

Installing the charging striations was made possible by a federal grant the city received from the Department of Energy. The city researched various studies and saw a growing need for electric car charging stations.

"It's about planning for the future," Torriente said. "As more time passes, there's going to be more of a need for those kinds of amenities and we need to start thinking about alternative energy sources."

While enjoying the park, officials hope park users will also charge their electronic car >batteries which they can do for free.

Fort Lauderdale also produced information fliers on the city's website and at Mills Pond Park to help educate residents about the features of the wind turbines and how they operate.

"It allowed us to do something very different and innovative," Torriente said.

3/22/14

The Turkish political scandals of the last few months have many
anticipating the municipal election on March 30. But the risk that
Turkish PM Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his AKP party will lose the election
appears low.

As Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan faces his worst political
crisis ever, the Turkish people are preparing for municipal elections
on March 30. Ever since the
Gezi Park protests
began last May, demonstrators have taken to the streets on an almost
weekly basis to protest against Erdogan and his ruling AKP party. They
have called for the government's resignation, and some no longer
recognize Erdogan as the country's legitimate leader.

For his critics, the reasons are obvious: one political scandal has
followed the other. A public corruption scandal which came to light on
December 17 got the ball rolling. On that day, a number of high-ranking
politicians, business leaders and sons of political ministers were
arrested and accused of bribery, illegal gold transactions with Iran and
of profiting from illegal construction projects. Erdogan reacted by
forcing out judges, prosecutors and police officers.

In February, the scandals began piling up as a number of recorded phone
calls were published online. In one, former Interior Minister Muammer
Guler, who was replaced in December after his son was detained as part
of the corruption investigation, can allegedly be heard speaking with
his son.
The recording is said to be proof that Guler and his son were involved
in illegal business transactions with Iranian businessman Reza Zerrab,
one of the main suspects of the corruption investigation. The phone call
is said to have taken place on the morning of December 17, but Guler
continues to deny the authenticity of the recording.

The situation became even more precarious when Erdogan was publicly
linked with the corruption scandal. For weeks, alleged wiretapped
conversations between the Turkish leader and his son have been
circulating on
YouTube,
the most controversial surfacing on February 24. In the recording,
Erdogan is said to have urged his son Bilal to hide huge sums of money
on December 17.

After all the scandals surrounding the AKP government, the upcoming
municipal election is seen less as a vote by government critics and more
of a test. The main opposition party CHP has called the vote a race
between "haram" and "halal"; under Islamic law, everything designated
haram is prohibited, while that which is halal is permitted.

Among the general population, the mood is mixed. Former anti-government
Gezi Park protesters appear unsure. "Every government is corrupt, in a
way. Erdogan and his AKP party have brought the Turkish economy so far
forward. I don't know who else to vote for. Maybe I just won't vote,"
said a 35-year-old former protester, speaking with DW.

Emre Gonen, a political scientist at the European Institute at
Istanbul's Bilgi University, believes the AKP has a good chance of
winning the election. Gonen told DW that the scandals will not really
affect the election results, adding that although the AKP could lose
some support the scandals "will not make the party lose the election."

In the last decade, said Gonen, Turkey has benefited from economic,
social and political stability. Over the last 30 years, he said the
country has seen turmoil, attempts at military coups and the presence of
the military in civilian politics. "All this has been gradually solved
within the AKP government period, and that has created a deep sense of
confidence among the voters," he said.

Despite the current domestic
problems, Gonen said the AKP still has at least 40 percent support in
the polls. "Forty percent is an enormous support in any given democracy
today. It will definitely require a dependable alternative political
force to make the AKP go back into the opposition," he said. And in
Turkey, that is currently nowhere in sight.Read more: Erdogan defies quagmire of scandal in Turkey | Europe | DW.DE | 21.03.2014

Eurogroup President Jeroen Dijsselbloem, who is chairing the
intergovernmental conference on certain aspects of the single resolution
fund, also participated in the negotiations.

"On behalf of the Presidency, I should like to warmly welcome today's agreement on this key element of Europe's banking union. I sincerely hope that it will open the way for approval by both Parliament and Council within the timeframe we have set on account of the forthcoming European elections," said Greek Minister for Finance Yannis Stournaras.

"The agreed text
will now be submitted to the member states, and I hope that they will be
able to support it", said the Minister.

The single resolution mechanism regulation will be a key element of Europe's future banking union. It will establish a single resolution board, which will have broad powers in cases of bank resolution, and a single resolution fund.

The purpose of the mechanism is to ensure orderly resolution of failing banks while minimising impact on taxpayers and the real economy. In
principle the resolution mechanism will apply to all banks in the euro
area and in those EU countries that choose to participate.

"Together we have made a very important step in restoring confidence
in banks as well as in the eurozone. And this at an unprecedented speed.
With the banking union, risks will be pushed back to where they belong:
to the ones that are taking the risks and benefit from the risks - the
financial sector - and not to the tax payer, " said Eurogroup President J.Dijsselbloem.

Once the agreed text
of the regulation is approved, the intergovernmental agreement on the
functioning of the single resolution fund will be concluded too.

The
complete text of the regulation will be finalised in the coming days
and submitted to the Permanent Representatives Committee for agreement.

It looks like a sketch from Howard Hughes’ notebooks, but this
massive air ship is real, and currently the biggest aircraft ever
produced. It can also be remote-controlled and land on water. And the
lead singer of Iron Maiden is an investor.

The HAV 304 “Airlander” is just over 300 feet long. That’s nearly 60 feet longer than a Boeing 747, 80 feet longer than the Spruce Goose, and 30 feet longer than the Antonov An-225, the previous title-holder for the world’s largest aircraft.

The flying leviathan was produced by British aeronautics firm Hybrid Air Vehicles, and it’s being considered for commercial and rescue applications–at around $100 million each.

The Airlander’s design is more complex and functional than its
Hindenberg aesthetics would indicate. The hull’s shape produces the same
aerodynamic lift as an airplane wing, and a series of enormous bladders
are filled with inert helium to get it airborne. Four turbocharged, V8
diesel engines produce 350 horsepower a piece and power the propellers.

The rear and forward props push it forward, but the Airlander’s design
allows for “zero-energy” lift during long-distance flight and it can
hover for 21 days straight, albeit while burning about 818 gallons of
fuel per day. Top speed? A modest 100 mph, but that’s still impressive
for something tipping the scales at 38 tons and designed to haul many
more tons of cargo.

On the bottom, the “skids landing system” is made of pneumatic tubes
that inflate to allow the Airlander to land on sand, water, or dry land,
all without the need for an airstrip. Because it’s heavier than air, it
doesn’t need anyone on the ground to pull it to the earth, unlike last
century’s helium ships. All these features make it perfectly suited for
disaster relief, or–more likely–transporting heavy equipment for oil or
mining companies.

“It’s clear to every single tech company that this is affecting their bottom line,” Daniel Castro, a senior analyst at the Information Technology and Innovation Center, told the Times.

Castro predicts that the United States’ cloud computing industry
could lose $35 billion by 2016, and tech research firm Forrester said
the losses could be as high as $180 billion, or 25 percent of industry
revenue.

Already tech companies are shifting their spending to
accommodate international clients who might be concerned about their
privacy. IBM
said it would build 15 new data centers internationally to get
companies who are sensitive about their data to use their services. The
cost? $1.2 billion. Salesforce.com has similar plans.

Tech execs at many Silicon Valley companies have said they were
unaware of the extent that the government was tapping into their user
data when the PRISM scandal first broke. Facebook'sMark Zuckerberg, Google'sLarry Page and others have insisted they were only complicit in the government’s requests when it was required of them by a court order.

Still, many people and companies continue to be suspicious of tech
companies’ role in the controversy, and this week the NSA's general
counsel said the companies knew the agency was collecting the data.
As a result, tech industry leaders say they’re not even being considered in some contracts and losing business.

3/21/14

While the world focuses on Crimea and the comical "tick-tac-toe" between President's Obama and Putin, there is another geo-political problem, which in terms of scope and strategic importance to the West, is far more critical than Crimea

That problem is called Turkey, on the opposite side of Crimea, with the Black Sea in between .

Here we are now facing a corrupt and paranoid PM and his government, who have gone power crazy and totally out of control, taking Turkey down the road of potentially violent public disturbances and economic meltdown.

Even though, in all fairness Erdogan's accession on to Turkey's political scene more than 10 years ago "raised many eyebrows right from the start, most Turks gave him the benefit of the doubt and overlooked Erdogan's hard-line reputation, and the religious undertone of his AKParty given the apparent prosperity the country was experiencing under his leadership.

Then came a change, the "Genie got out of the bottle", and the AKparty and Erdogan became more and more dictatorial, eliminating all forces of opposition, including those in the powerful Turkish military, the press and many other organizations.

The situation got even worse after Erdogan got into a "spat" with his Guru and Mentor, Muhammed Fethullah Gülen, who lives in Pennsylvania, USA, as an exile and from there also controls a global network of schools and organizations under the banner "Moderate and Peaceful Islam.".

Obviously back in Pennsylvania Muhammed Fethullah Gülen, was not very happy his "pupil" Erdogan had stopped listening to him and rumors and evidence began circulating about the billions Erdogan and his croonies in government had swindled.

Erdogan pointed his finger at his former buddy Muhammed Fethullah Gülen claiiming that it was him who had created a parallel state within the state that wanted to topple his government.

Unfortunately for Erdogan despite his illegitimate reshuffling of thousands of
police officers and hundreds of judges and prosecutors, he nor his government were able to track down a single piece of evidence of what he called a "parallel state".

In
light of all these signs of corruption, it has also become evident to many people in Turkey that the whole
parallel state argument by Erdogan was an imagined enemy that Erdogan, like Don Quixote, used in his
fight against the "windmills".

But Erdogan still has quite a few cards to play. As a result of the Turkish electoral and voting system Erdogan and his party still control the Turkish parliament. Consequently Erdogan's AKParty is approving new laws on a daily basis to consolidate and strengthen his grip on every level of the Turkish society.

Mr Erdogan's other major fobia is that he is totally intolerant of criticism from whatever source it comes and has not hesitated to use his powers to have anyone he considers "a threat to the Republic" thrown into jail.

Turkey now has more journalists in prison than just about any other country in the world.

Turkey ranked 154th out of 180 countries surveyed in the World Press
Freedom Index released by the Reporters Without Borders Association on Feb. 12, even behind China and war-torn nations such
as Afghanistan and Iraq. The report noted further that “the Gezi Park revolt highlighted the repressive methods used by the
security forces, the increase in self-censorship and the dangers of the
prime minister’s populist discourse,”

More recently, audio recordings that appear to be of Erdogan have shown how deeply he is involved in government corruption, were posted on Twitter by an anonymous account holder, just weeks before the March 30 local elections in the country.

Even though Erdogan denied that these recordings were legitimate he apparently decided it was better to be 'safe than sorry' and just get rid of Twitter altogether.

On Thursday, March 20 Erdogan made good on his promise to wipe out Twitter in his country, and Turkish tweeters are now reporting that they are unable to access the service.

Twitter published a message on its service that same day advising users in Turkey that it was still possible to send Tweets on twitter using mobile phone text messaging.

Erdogan has previously also called social media a "menace to society" and threatened to ban YouTube and Facebook. Last year, at least 25 people were arrested for tweeting messages of protests against Erdogan and his government. It now also appears that Facebook is being shut down in Turkey.

Indeed, the world, and particularly the EU should wake up and "smell the roses" about the situation in Turkey,

Like it or not, Turkey is a powerful economic ally of the West, a member of NATO and a candidate member of the EU with a population of 81.7 million.

In contrast Crimea and its 2.3 million people, which since 700 BC has been changing hands many times including being part of the Cimmerians, Bulgars, Greeks, Scythians, Romans, Goths, Huns, Khazars, Kievan Rus, the Byzantine Empire, Venice, Genoa, Kipchaks, the Golden Horde, the Ottaman Empire, the Russian Empire, the Soviet Union, Germany, Ukraine and now Russia again.

Crimea or Turkey - Come on EU Commission and EU-Parliament - You don't need to be Einstein to figure that one out ?

As to Crimea, let's be frank - Crimeans voted fair and square they don't want to be part of Ukraine anymore. Maybe the simple solution would be for President Obama to shake hands with President Putin, wish Crimea well, and tell President Putin not to start messing with Ukraine in the future, or else.